Tuesday, March 23, 2010

A review of tonight's "Lost" coming up just as soon as you fetch me some blankets...

"You've suffered enough, Ricardo." -Isabella

It's been almost three years since "The Man Behind the Curtain" aired and viewers saw that Richard Alpert doesn't appear to age. In the ensuing time, the question about why he doesn't has shot to the top of the "Lost" Mysteries That Must Be Solved list - basically the opposite of "where did Jack get those bitchin' tattoos?" - and anticipation built and built for the Richard flashback episode we all knew we'd get sooner or later(*).

(*) Or, at least, we all knew it once CBS canceled Cane and the "Lost" producers were able to lock down Nestor Carbonell's services for these last two seasons. Imagine how annoyed we'd all be if "Cane" had succeeded, and not just because "Cane" sucked.

In other words, "Ab Aetern" had a lot to live up to - maybe more than any episode we're going to get this season other than the finale itself.

And it absolutely lived up to my expectations.

On one level, it answered a whole bunch of "Lost" questions, some long-standing, some relatively recent but crucial:

• Why doesn't Richard age? Because he asked Jacob for that gift to avoid eternal damnation after Jacob couldn't resurrect his wife or absolve him of his sins.

• How did the statue crumble into a four-toed foot? The Black Rock smashed it to pieces on its journey into the island.

• How did the Black Rock wind up in the middle of the jungle? Because Jacob whipped up one hell of a storm to make sure it landed on the island and couldn't leave.

• What's this game that Jacob and Smokey are playing? Jacob - while playing jailkeeper to the evil that Smokey represents (with the island as "the cork in the bottle") - is trying to prove Smokey wrong in his belief that man is inherently prone to sin, and so brings people to the island to perform in one morality play after another.

• If this whole series has just been one elaborate game between two immortal god-like creatures, why should we care about any action the characters take? Because Jacob is a hands-off deity who believes in free will for all those he brings to the island (as he told Ben before he killed him, "You have a choice"). So whatever actions Jacob took on the mainland to steer them here, what we've seen Jack and Locke and the rest actually do on Craphole Island has been entirely their own doing. (And that in turn takes away one of my big concerns about this final season.)

But if "Ab Aeterno" was just a checklist of answers, it would have been a fairly inert outing (as I've found some previous mythology-intensive episodes like season four's "Cabin Fever").

What made this one a highlight not only of the final season, but of the series' entire run, was what made "Lost" so compelling at the beginning, before hatches and fertility experiments and time-traveling Scotsmen and the rest of the mythology (which I really do like): it was both a great character piece and a white-knuckle thriller.

Carbonell (who once upon a time was known only as The Guy With the Funny Accent on "Suddenly Susan") owned this episode just as much as Michael Emerson did "Dr. Linus" or Terry O'Quinn did "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham." For three-plus seasons, Richard's been the serene, all-knowing man of mystery, and Carbonell was superb at showing both a cracked, suicidal Richard who has decided he actually knows nothing, and then at showing the very human man he was before Jacob made him immortal. Like "The Constant" (another "Lost" all-timer), we had a time-spanning romance, and if it wasn't one with quite the happy ending that Desmond and Penny got (for now), at least Ricardo finally got a proper goodbye from his beloved Isabella, and her love renewed his belief that he chose the right side of this conflict all those decades ago.

And if we had gotten no relevant answers but every minute of Richard's harrowing ordeal shackled below decks in a ship full of dead men(**), I still would have found "Ab Aeterno" to be an immensely satisfying hour.

(**) There's long been a mutual admiration society between Lindelof, Cuse and Stephen King, and as I watched Richard struggle to free himself of those chains, my thoughts started to turn to King's "Gerald's Game."

Like I've said and said and said, I care about "Lost" answers much less than I care about being entertained. "Ab Aeterno" offered both answers (or, in some cases, important clarifications) and entertainment in spades. If I wasn't so tired, I might pull a John Locke and declare my need to watch it again, immediately.

Some other thoughts:

• I also don't think it's a coincidence that an episode this good was also the first of the season to do without the flash-sideways (and to bring back the more familiar "whoosh" sound effect for the flashbacks). Not only was Richard's story so compelling that we were able to spend the majority of the episode in an uninterrupted flashback, but we know going in that everything we were seeing has relevance to the story we've been following all these seasons. The sideways probably have relevance, but we don't know what that is yet, so those stories tend to succeed or fail almost entirely on whether we have pre-existing affection for the spotlight character. The flashback was not only a ripping yarn on its own, but something that requires no explanation at a later date to be fully appreciated.

• Smokey adopting Locke's form gives the producers an excuse to keep Terry O'Quinn employed, but I have to say that it was nice to see Titus Welliver again as Smokey Classic. He has such great screen presence and darkness and was a very convincing trickster devil in his scenes with Ricardo. (I remember him turning up in a small role as an "ER" doctor in an early "NYPD Blue" episode and asking myself, "Who the hell is this guy?" I was not surprised to see David Milch kept employing Welliver, until "Deadwood" finally raised his profile enough that he now works regularly on shows like this.)

• And the flashback structure also gave us a long glimpse of Mark Pellegrino as Jacob. Interesting to see a much crankier Jacob in his first meeting with Ricardo; this sure seemed like the first time (or first time in a long while) that Smokey tried to break the rules and use a pawn to try to kill Jacob. And note that Smokey's warning to Ricardo about not letting Jacob say a single word is exactly what Dogen told Sayid about Smokey a few weeks back.

• "Everyone's dead and this is Hell" was one of the earliest fan theories about the nature of the island, so it seemed a nice touch for Richard to spend so much of this episode (first in the past, then in the present) believing it to be true.

I'd hardly call this episode a "white knuckle thriller." I thought it moved at a snail's pace. Even if you were captivated by the tale of love and redemption- which I wasn't, because it's kind of been done to death on this show- what part of this episode merits THAT kind of description?

Consider my mind blown. That was one of the best hours and six minutes of TV of the past year. I geeked out, I was saddened, I was mystified, I was confused, I was entranced. One of the best Lost episodes ever?

I have to let that episode sit on me for a while. There was just so much to take in. Sure, we didn't get ton of answers, but it played great as a prequel for the story of the show. You have to set up before you can run up.

There's long been a mutual admiration society between Lindelof, Cuse and Stephen King, and as I watched Richard struggle to free himself of those chains, my thoughts started to turn to King's "Gerald's Game.

That's funny. My thoughts turned to The Stand. I remembered the guy in the prison who was the only one to survive the flu get busted out by another Man in Black and begin following his bidding.

It’s weird how season 6 is progressing. It has had so many really excellent episodes, but on the whole it’s just not cohering for me. I think it’s because I really do enjoy the flash-sideways on an episode-by-episode basis, but they simply don’t add up to anything. So on the whole the season doesn’t have a whole lot of stuff which “matters”. This was the first episode that really felt like it mattered.

And I don't know if it's that he was speaking a foreign language or not, but Nestor Carbonel was PHENOMENAL this episode. What a performance. IMO, this is a tour-de-force which deserves an Emmy which he will never get, but which really does rank with the best of Lost. If we had gotten this performance from him in season 3, we'd be putting him on a level with Cusick, Emerson, and O'Quinn.

I thought it was fantastic. But, I am extremely biased. I have wanted this episode for so long, they could have shown anything they wanted- as long as it was Richard's back story- and I probably still would have loved it.

Also, I feel like we learned more about jacob as a character and a person in this episode than we have during the rest of the series.

As I mentioned on Twitter, I absolutely loved the write up as usual. My lingering question is: How do we know Isabella's ghost wasn't Jacob manipulating Hurley & Richard? We know that Jacob & the Man in Black both are aware of the characters' pasts and can accordingly pose as those characters with that knowledge (the cross necklace, etc.). Thoughts?

Man, not saying I didn't like it, but to compare it to some of the other great episodes in the series, not seeing it. Maybe I need to watch it again, but frankly I was tired of all the time spent inside the Black Rock.

With that said, we did get some answers and I thought Nestor Carbonell did a great job overall.

After the episode aired, I immediately thought I had Jacob pegged as the good guy, but have been reading comments in other forums and many are saying the opposite because he brought so many to the island that he in essence, gave them a death sentence. Hmmm, need to ponder more.

So we've "known" for a while that Smokey can assume the form of dead folk (Locke, Eko's brother, Temple Alex, Kate's Horse.) My question is: does Jacob have this ability as well, appearing as Isabella and ... Jacob?

Only complaint is that the Black Rock was cleary visible from the Island back during Jacob/MiB's "first" breakfast chat. How then do we explain the nighttime monsoon?

My thoughts are still just whirling right now but there is one thing that really stood out for me. Jacob's describing the island as a cork I found very intriguing. I noticed he said the island was preventing the evil, malevalance etc from escaping BUT he never said MIB was the evil.

A thought occurred to me that maybe they are actually working somewhat together but smokey's just tired of being there.

"Confused how the statue was destroyed by the Black Rock in the 1860's, but still standing when Sawyer and crew flashed back to the 1950's and 70's in Season 5."

The flash where they saw the statue standing was a separate flash than the ones that took them to the 50s and 70s - it only lasted a couple of minutes while they were standing by the well.

This was a fantastic hour of television, but it really underscored how frustrating the flashsideways have been. I think Darlton may have been thinking too much about how the season will play on DVD in the years to come and not enough about how it plays as a weekly series right now.

I have to totally agree with Danny F. too. I can't disagree more about this being a great character piece and I wasn't the least bit captivated by this "tale of love and redemption". Again, it's been done to death and I thought it was just soap-opera bad in its execution.

Nitpick... Didn't the Black Rock arrive during a sunny morning in "The Incident" and not a storm? Or was it ever confirmed that that was actually the Black Rock? And if Smokey wants to get off the island, why would he kill people that could potentially help him, like the sailors on the BR?

Other than those, this was pretty freaking awesome and Nestor Carbonell really did a great job.

I though the episode was decent but out of place. It felt like this should have come some time in season 2 instead of 6. The flashback take away from the overall atmosphere that the series is ending. I just wish they had done this a lot sooner than waiting to interrupt the flow of the final season.

On that note, I enjoyed seeing a less serene, at peace Jacob.

Did anyone else catch what time period Richard was from? 1863 or there abouts? Does that seem appropriate? Did they still call America the new world then? Kind of felt like it should have been earlier.

I wish the story was written with John Locke not becoming Man In Black and this actor playing the character instead.

I'm not going to say i hated the episode, but I didn't feel it told us to much we didn't already know. We already knew Richard was on the Black Rock, he didn't age because of Jacob, and Jacob and MIB are good and evil (who is who is still up for debate). What did we really learn this episode? Nestor Carbonel was amazing, but i don't have the emotional connection to Richard that i do with the castaways, so his story didn't move me the way episodes like The Constant did. I would have been curious to see Richard's time on the island and seen his interaction with The Others and why he visisted young Locke. I'm sure I am in the minority with my opinons though.

Also, based on the description of the man in black (malevolence, evil, death) provided by Jacob does that explain why he keeps promising that he'll bring back the one you love? Maybe because he actually can remove someone from death and place them back alive where as Jacob has no connection to that area hence his powers reflect a continuation of life (curing of cancer, removal of aging).

What did we really learn this episode? Nestor Carbonel was amazing, but i don't have the emotional connection to Richard that i do with the castaways, so his story didn't move me the way episodes like The Constant did. I would have been curious to see Richard's time on the island and seen his interaction with The Others and why he visisted young Locke. I'm sure I am in the minority with my opinons though.

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I totally agree. Not that it was bad, but there was sooooooo much more about Richard we could have learned; his time on the island, his dealing with "The Others", and like you said, going to see Locke.

There was a point about half way through when I started to feel "too much time in the Black Rock" and I realized the flashback was going to be the whole episode. However, the performance, the answers, things clicking into place, Hurly, Isabella, it just all came together for me and I ended up thinking, "Wow, if every hour of television kept me this engaged, thinking, solving, wondering, tearing up, etc. I would never leave the house.

Kudos to the Lost writers for some of the best episodes ever written for television and the producers for assembling some amazing actors and giving them a terrific platform to show their stuff.

Only complaint is that the Black Rock was cleary visible from the Island back during Jacob/MiB's "first" breakfast chat. How then do we explain the nighttime monsoon?

I also wondered about this apparent contradiction. However the ship was quite far out at that point, and a scenario where Jacob sat there all day contemplating the drama about to play out whilst the Black Rock was stalled without wind and only raising the hellish storm that marooned them come nightfall is fairly acceptable to me.

Overall I hugely enjoyed the episode, although I do have a slight sense of disappointment that having waited for an explanation of Richard's agelessness since TMBtC by the time we got here I had pretty much figured out what and how (but not why - which admittedly played out nicely as the third option on his wishlist).

If I'm not mistaken in the Season 5 finale when we see the breakfast chat and the ship (most probably the black rock) it is a nice, sunny day. But then we see the ship arrive during a storm.... when the ship was in the area, maybe the storm hit after and then brought the ship there. Maybe (not that it makes so much of a difference)?

The long-awaited Richard-Flashback hour could have been a thin info-dump, but this episode had great soul: Isabella. Catholic guilt. A man shackled alone just inches from drinkable water.

It also confirmed a couple of ideas that were still mixing in my head: about Smokey wanting to leave the island- and the role of the island as a jail to protect the rest of the world from him. Which also goes a long way toward explaining the dire pronouncements of the Jacobs, Widmores, and Bens about how important it is to control this island.

It's sometimes fun to think of Lost like X-Men- individual conflicts are affected by what each character brings with them. Jack's medical skills put him in a leadership position early on. Charlie got to finally be useful when it was necessary to code in "Good Vibrations" at the Looking Glass. And Hurley's powers? Good thing we have a guy who can speak Spanish.... to dead people.

Another parallel from a recent episode: When Smokey says "nice to see you out of those chains" to Richard after he frees him from his literal chains in the Black Pearl. Smokey-as-John-Locke says the same thing to Richard when he first sees him post-Jacob's death, talking about the figurative chains that Jacob supposedly had on Richard.

I felt the first half really dragged and it didn't pick up until Titus Welliver showed up. I enjoyed it from that point on, but the tedious first part keeps it from being a classic. At least Richard didn't have daddy issues.

I was surprised by how invested I was in Richard's character this episode: I was deflated when he marched off in the beginning; as he tried to get out of those chains and as Smokey and Jacob were vying for his trust, I was genuinely tense. I was anxious when he went to defect, hoping it was Ilana in the jungle behind him, and both relieved and excited when it was Hurley. I kind of expected them to pull one over on us by giving us no new answers or information tonight, and I was right, but I enjoyed it none the less.

Another huge grip I had with this episode was Richard learning English so quickly. I suppose he spoke it on the boat while in chains but we have no idea how long he was in those chains (week or two, maybe 3 at tops?)

Only complaint is that I would have liked to see more about who the original hostiles were and how Richard got them to be on Jacob's team. I assume the hostiles were just other people Jacob brought to the island at various points, but why did none of them side with Smokey? And why did they fight with the Dharma folks instead of trying to get along with them? How did Jacob use Richard to rule them, etc.

Loved the episode. Confirmed a lot. I think we do know now that Jacob = good while smokey = bad. Makes sense that Jacob wants to keep his evil contained. Also now makes sense why smokey wants to get off the island.

I'm no longer worried about some terrible Sopranos ending to the show. I can now sit back and enjoy the ride.

Was "It's a cork" a partial answer to the question of "What is the island?" Or is it, as not-Locke said, "just an island" and it's Jacob/MIB that's the source of all the crazy stuff associated with it (namely people being healed)? Except the island has to be somewhat special on its own, due to the magnetism.

I loved this episode, I think I enjoy Lost on your more basic level so an episode like this is right up my alley. Plus I love me some Richard and to see him showcased like this was awesome. I loved the story of his wife Isabella and the end with Hurley made me all teary. But I'm a weeper....

For the first time since The Constant I loved an episode. I thought it was entertaining and I thought the acting was amazing, especially Carbonell. In the long run, will it mean anything or will it be muddled again? Who knows? But at least I was entertained again, if only for one night.

So who keeps Smokey on the island while Jacob's in the US recruiting folks?

Also, the answer to the free will vs. fate debate is "It's fate until you get to the island - then it's free will because you guys should figure out right & wrong on your own."

What are the consequences of Jacob's game with Smokey? Does evil cease to exist if only one man decides to do the right thing?

Lastly, if I'm Smokey and I want to recruit a guy to stab a dude in the chest...shouldn't I choose the guy that was just cold-bloodedly stabbing multiple dudes in the chest (Capt. Whitfield) instead of smokifying him?

To explain away the ship in "The Incident," Jacob said in this episode that there were others before Richard. That was most likely one of those ships. We always just thought it was the Black Rock because we didn't know other ships had come to the island before. Plus, the statue was whole in that scene, which gives credence for it taking place pre-Richard/Ricardos.

After a plodding start, the episode closed with some nice bits of drama, but I have to say that I'm a bit underwhelmed by most of the "answers" provided (mainly because of them were particularly surprising):

(1) I always assumed Jacob made Richard immortal, but never really cared about why Richard would want that.

(2) A crash between the ship and the statue has long been a suspected cause of the extant toe and the stranded ship (check lost.about.com-- seems straightforward to kill two birds with one Black Rock).I'm much more interested in why/how the statue was originally built than in its current condition.

(3) Jacob causing a storm to bring the people on the ship to the island seems like a dumb plan, given that he let Smokey kill almost all of them soon after their arrival. I was disappointed to learn that Jacob didn't create the storm in order specifically for Ricardo, who I was expecting him to have surreptitiously interacted with off the island.

(4) Now the one thing I really did like was the the island as the stopgap for Hell revelation, which was a nice unexpected (at least to me) twist. But given that the island is so important, it seems a bit silly of Jacob to be engaging in these capricious games while trying to maintain control of it.

I know it wouldn't make for good drama, but if Jacob had simply shared with the remaining candidates the same stopgap analogy he imparted to Richard, I'm pretty sure they would have all signed up on his side. So why doesn't he? Wouldn't more complete information help them better exercise their free will?

Lastly, the main problem I have with this episode is that I don't really understand why Richard is so disillusioned with Jacob. Doesn't Richard know that the reason he's been traveling the world checking up on Locke and whomever else is to help find Jacob's successor? So why was he so freaked out by Jacob's death?

I think Widmore & Locke are on the same side. As evidence I present that Widmore wanted Locke to come to the island and that Widmore was unceremoniously banished from the island by Jacob, who supposedly doesn't interfere.

I'm sure that's terribly unnuanced, but that's my new theory if Locke is indeed the evil character in this all-things-gray story.

"Because Jacob is a hands-off deity who believes in free will for all those he brings to the island (as he told Ben before he killed him, "You have a choice")."

I think they both actually believe in free will. Smokey just has a very negative opinion of mankind. He believes are weak and can be corrupted, but he does not take away free will. He manipulates and convinces. This may seem like a bad thing, but I don't think Jacob is that great of a guy for bringing people to the island in the first place. They had already made their decisions for good or bad off the island.

I know many people don't want Lost to become an epic showdown between Smokey and Jacob in the final season, but I'm loving it. It's so complicated. I love trying to wrap my mind around it.

Check out my other Lost thoughts at my blog: http://mcklowry.blogspot.com

Another huge grip I had with this episode was Richard learning English so quickly. I suppose he spoke it on the boat while in chains but we have no idea how long he was in those chains (week or two, maybe 3 at tops?)

Richard knew English before he even got on the boat. That was established in the prison in the scene with the priest.

I think the only thing that really struck me as false was the guy killing all of the chained prisoners. Because seriously? You just landed there, you have no idea how large the island is, if there could be some fresh water somewhere...yada, yada. You don't know who or what is on the island, wouldn't you want as many men as possible for the first few days to help build shelter, search for food and water, safety in numbers etc? Then kill them if they aren't going to be useful.

But the scene with Richard and Isabella at the end made me happy again so it all balances out at the end.

@Greg: I feel like having the ghosts be MiB incarnations might be too much; there have to be some rules, and Hurley has seen many ghosts off-island (where MiB theoretically cannot travel). If Isabella was (for some reason) an incarnation of MiB when she spoke to Hurley, then I think all of the ghosts would have to be either Jacob or MiB. Which is possible, but I think unlikely.

Regarding the ship in the Incident - assuming time for Jacob and MiB is linear (which I know is a huge assumption to make), all we know is that that happened in the past. Pre-airplanes, ships are the most likely way for anyone to get to the island. Considering Jacob has brought many, many people there by his own admission, it stands to reason that that could have been one of many, many ships.

Jacob's insistence that he doesn't interfere fascinated me - is he a liar or does he believe that? Unless things have changed fairly recently, we know he chooses people and then forces them to come to the island (by downing their planes, crashing their ships, breaking up their rafts, or whatever). How he can say he doesn't interfere is beyond me - their being there is obviously bound to have an affect on their behavior. In the present we know he does other things, like meet them in their regular lives, (perhaps) heal them, and give information to Hurley. I suppose his argument is that he doesn't "force" them to do his will, but his version of the scientific method seems quite flawed.

It's also interesting that he brings people to the island when, apparently, the only person who must remain on the island (MiB) is the only one who cannot kill him. Maybe he just gets bored, but that's playing with fire. Liked that he seemed genuinely surprised by Richard's point that someone must intervene - I guess you can teach an old god new tricks (sorry).

All in all, a fun episode that I think wisely focused on Richard's life and his motivation rather than trying to be a greatest hits.

"(4) Now the one thing I really did like was the the island as the stopgap for Hell revelation, which was a nice unexpected (at least to me) twist. But given that the island is so important, it seems a bit silly of Jacob to be engaging in these capricious games while trying to maintain control of it."

The producers have repeated time after time after time that the island is not purgatory. If it now actually is, they will have an absolute shitstorm to deal with.

What are the consequences of Jacob's game with Smokey? Does evil cease to exist if only one man decides to do the right thing?

I don't think there are any consequences. I think that the conflict between Jacob and Smokey is an excuse to have the Losties kill each other in climactic fashion.

Seriously. If one man does the right thing on Craphole Island, does he make a sound? The answer is no. The reason this season sucks is that with every episode we get closer to learning (definitively) that everything we've ever learned about Jacob was a waste.

I loved the episode for its pure entertainment value and the fact that we FINALLY got a Richard centric, BUT I am disappointed in the trajectory of the mythology. I figured this was inevitable, and I am hoping they still have some twists and turns coming, including alluding to other, non-Christian philosophies of good vs. evil and human nature, but I am disappointed in the Christian-centric mythology here.

Of course, one could argue that it was necessary because the main character - Alpert - was a nineteenth century Spanish Catholic, and that was the lens through which the story was being told. This is what I am hoping. I would love them to come at us in another couple of week with some more obscure Egyptian references, or, even better, and more appropriate, Zoroastrian.

Okay, so maybe I can get into it. Haha.

I've been fearing it would go this way since the faith vs. science stuff began, and I was hoping they'd have the balls to either make a pro-rationality metaphor of the show or at least come up with something tantalizing different vis a vis metaphors for the human condition, but... nope.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that it's turning into a medieval morality play filtered through 'Touched By an Angel' - it is, after all, on American network TV. And this season's poster was the Last Supper.

So in that sense, I found it a giant cop-out and disappointment - so far. Lost just keeps getting more and more metaphysical and woo-y. If the end message ends up being, as I have feared since "Man of Science, Man of Faith," that "you just have to BELIEVE," I am going to demand a refund.

I thought Nestor Carbonell was wonderful -if it was a bit soap opera-ish at times, and as someone upthread said, it was a delight to just sit back and ENJOY the pacing, suspense, and thriller aspect of Lost again. Unlike another poster, I looked at the clock halfway through, realizing the episode was almost entirely set in 1867, and I was thrilled. It was such a relief not to "waste time" with any AR for once.

Some other odd thoughts I've had:

Re: Cork-in-a-bottle - Flocke is a genie. (The English word "genie" derives from the Arabic word "jinn," and jinn are another category of creation along with humans and angels in Islam.)

Re: Parallels of language. Isabella looked into the eyes of the smoke monster and saw evil. Locke looked into the eyes of the smoke monster, and it was beautiful. Dogen told Sayid to stab Flocke immediately upon seeing him, and not to let him speak. The Man in Black told Ricardo to stab Jacob immediately and not let him speak. Both would-be assassins were using special swords given by the orchestrator.

And, finally, one ending I would be satisfied with would be if the Losties got tired of being pawns in the games of these gods and resolved to kill BOTH of them, Nietzsche-style.

I agree with the poster up thread who said FLocke is a genie. It's the answer that fits most. The island is the bottle and Jacob was sort of the cork. I know Jacob said the island was the cork but I think this formulation is probably closer.

Carbonell did a great acting job. Like others I'd like to learn more about some of the things he's said and done that need explaining but this was pretty good.

"The producers have repeated time after time after time that the island is not purgatory. If it now actually is, they will have an absolute shitstorm to deal with."

I didn't interpret the stopgap analogy to indicate the island is purgatory-- it's more like a Hellmouth that's currently blocked ... maybe the next time the island moves, it will show up in suburban Los Angeles.

"another flash takes Locke through time again. This time, he is found by Richard, who explains that he knew where to find him from Locke himself. He informs Locke that they will be strangers at their next meeting, and thus gives him a compass to get his younger self to trust Locke. He also tells Locke this is happening because of those that have left the Island. To get them to return, he will need to die."--Wikipedia

Why would Richard be helping "Esau" find a loophole to kill Jacob (John dieing and taking over as "Esau" is the loophole), I thought Richard follows the one in charge? Especially since now it seems he was loyal to Jacob's plan until his death and at that point he hadn't died?

Re: "Why would Richard be helping "Esau" find a loophole to kill Jacob (John dieing and taking over as "Esau" is the loophole), I thought Richard follows the one in charge? Especially since now it seems he was loyal to Jacob's plan until his death and at that point he hadn't died?"

Because the visitation to Alpert that set the whole thing going WAS Flocke. In "Follow the Leader," when he visits the US Army camp being used by the Others, including young Widmore and young Hawking.

Such a great episode. Sometimes you need to just sit back and enjoy the ride. Nitpicking the storm (how many times has the weather changed in an instant especially when entering that close to the island) or the crash through a statue. Hello there is a man who turns into black smoke! You just have to take somethings for what they are- this is the island after all. I have been waiting for this episode for a long time and it was more than worth the wait. I am sitting back and enjoying this season and enjoying it for what it is, I won't allow myself to be disappointed. The more you try to read into the little things at this point, the unhappier you will be in the end. Sometimes you just have to sit back and let the black smoke take you.

My dear US friends. Tonight was the first time I have ever watched this television series "Lost" but I have heard about it. I do not know one person's name on the show, nor do I understand the plot, but still I enjoyed it tremendously tonight just because the acting that I saw tonight was superb and the 66 minutes were greatly interesting. A ship made of solid wood landing in the jungle? A man who does not age since the year AD 1867? A devil figure and a man imprisoning this devil figure? A corrupt priest refusing to shrive a condemned man, and slavers and a being constructed of black gaseous matter? All I can say is: imaginative throughout. My delight in viewing what I saw tonight on ABC television proves the power of good storytelling can stand alone, good friends.Sincerely,Pandois ThursteemNative of Turkey

Anyone else finding it somewhat difficult to take Jacob at his word? I think that the guy is being truthful about the Man in Black to a certain extent, but with all his talk about wanting to prove Smokey wrong, it just seems that Jacob only has his own self-interests in mind when it comes to our characters.

He claims that he doesn't want to interfere, that he wants people to come to their own conclusions, but from all we know about him, he's been intervening in people's lives from day one.

I just don't think the Jacob = lightness/good and MiB = darkness/evil. Each of these entities have their own goals in mind.

If anyone is interested, you can find more of my thoughts on this episode on my blog where I go into detail about the implications this episode has on Eko's fatal encounter with the monster as well as why I think Rose and Bernard may be the smartest and most spiritually content characters to appear on "Lost". Click my username for the link.

Lastly, the main problem I have with this episode is that I don't really understand why Richard is so disillusioned with Jacob. Doesn't Richard know that the reason he's been traveling the world checking up on Locke and whomever else is to help find Jacob's successor? So why was he so freaked out by Jacob's death?

No, Richard didn't know about any of this candidate business until Smokey mentioned it to him in "The Substitute". Smokey even said, "you mean you've been doing everything he told you all this time and he never said why? I would never have done that to you. I would never have kept you in the dark."

And it remains to be seen how Richard is supposed to know what to "do next". So he's really got plenty of reasons to be questioning everything Jacob's ever told him.

It's hell, not purgatory. There is a significant difference between the two.

Jacob/MIB's game: The Book of Job

The island as hell: Not in the sense that it is the place of the damned, but in the sense that the devil was cast out of heaven into hell.

Pandora's Box: I love this analogy the most, actually. Because it works perfectly with Jacob's description. Letting the cork out, so to speak, would be like opening the box. Of course, there's another part to that story (Remember what Locke said way back in Season 1 what he thought was in the hatch? Hope.)

I was intrigued by how angry and vicious Jacob was when attacked (which we have never seen before), versus how passive he was when Ben killed him and how nice he was to the candidates. I was thinking of it in an Old Testament/New Testament parallel (Vengeful God vs Merciful God), though what would that make Richard? At most he is a prophet for Jacob.

"Zeus did not want man to throw his life away, no matter how much the other evils might torment him, but rather to go on letting himself be tormented anew. To that end, he gives man hope. In truth, it is the most evil of evils because it prolongs man's torment."

At this point I am less concerned about figuring out the mystery and am simply enjoying the ride. I really think LOST has the best acting on television. Instead of trying to nitpick every detail I let myself get lost in the characters. Nestor Carbonell was heart wrenching and insanely unbelievably great in the episode.

You touched on most of what I loved about this episode, so I shan't repeat it.

But after six seasons of religious themes in Lost, I'm surprised to see Lost echoing my own idea of religion in this episode. (Warning, some people are going to be offended. This is my opinion, not a condemnation of anyone else's views, so please hold your hate mail. ;))

The idea of a God creating man to see him run through a maze of "will he or won't he" tests, if you will, for his own entertainment is what has always put me off religion. Always seemed cruel to me, and it certainly does here in Ab Aeterno. I'm not sure whether Darlton mean to present this view of religion or whether it simply services the story at this point. But there seems to be a theme of cruelty in the way the Jacob/MIB story was presented tonight, with both sides coming off as somewhat evil. Yes, they both say they have a higher ideal, but it's cruel on both sides and reduces the players to pawns in a game. I can't be the only one who feels this way.

I think I'm going to have to rewatch it before I get into many details. But this episode underlined what I love about "Lost".

Great story-telling. Sure, I wanted answers at the beginning of the season. Now I'm more content with a satisfying execution and so many intriguing possibilities. (Others' mileage may vary.)

Literary allusions or reminders of great novels. This one was like a classic like "The Coubnt of Monte Cristo" crossed with an old horror story.

Incredible acting and development of many characters. In particular - Emerson, O'Quinn bring depth and wry humor, week after week. This episode gave time and nuance to both Titus Welliver and Nestor Carbonell.

The joys of digging through all the possibilies of meaning and resolutions. The stories inspire the best reviewers and posters to be original, playful, insightful, and if nothing else, damn entertaining.

I thik this one will grow in stature as it's rewatched. My compliments to Alan and many of the people here and elsewhere.

Lousy episode, serious missed opportunity. Richard's been on the island for 140 years, and we spend ten minutes of show in a (very empty) cargo hold? If the last 26 minutes -- where they talked out the answers everyone's been desperate for and very modestly (lamely, more like) played out the whole good/evil manipulation that's the foundation of this season -- were at all compelling, that still only came after 40 minutes of a tossed-off, uninvolving, irrelevant backstory.

Instead of getting to know Richard as he watches generations of people try and fail to resist the draw of evil, we got a very random love story. (The "island as hell" idea sort of went out the window when people left the island.) The producers struck gold with Des & Penny and Sawyer & Juliet, they successfully complicated Sun & Jin for a while, they've toyed the Jack-Kate-Sawyer triangle out interminably. The love well's dry.

Instead of carrying the heft of fate or the sad wisdom of time, this felt like a time-filler with a few audience-pleasing relevations tacked on at the end. Assuming this is the only Richard-centric episode there will be, it stands as one of the show's great failures.

If the whole damn series was always gonna boil down to an epic struggle between two supernatural characters, then I would have liked to have met the characters at some point in the first 5 f-ing seasons (or until the 5th finale if you like).

And if we find out that Jacob and/or Smokey are on the island because of spousal/parental issues like every other character, I might throw my tv out the window. Very weak and lazy execution of the long-awaited "Richard episode".

Lester, the executive producers have been saying since like season 2 that THE STAND was a big influence on the show, and I never really understood what they were saying until two or three weeks ago with SUNDOWN.

They still didn't answer the mystery of Richard's eyeliner, dammit ;-)

I loved this episode start to finish. Still don't know what to make of Jacob (he beat Richard, said he only lets people into his house he invites--like a reverse vampire, I guess--and he was kind of a dick), but I loved it nonetheless. Batmanuel done good tonight.

1) Richard as St. Peter. Just as St. Peter was a disciple of Jesus, so too is Richard a disciple of Jacob (the Jesus figure). And like St. Peter, Richard is bound in chains -- though Richard is released from the chains by the Man in Black and not an angel sent by God. (Though if the Man in Black is seen as the Devil, then he is by extension Lucifer, a fallen angel who is jealous of God's creation.) Also, Peter is the first one to enter Jesus' tomb. Richard goes to Jacob's tomb (at the foot of the statue) and does not originally see him.

2) Richard is born-again. This becomes more obvious at the end of the episode, when Isabella confirms for Richard that he picked the correct (moral) side. But throughout the episode, Richard is constantly "giving up" his religion. He gives Isabella's crucifix to the doctor, saying "Now you have everything." He gives up his mortality (in a sense his faith) to avoid eternal damnation. But when he tells Jacob that he is dead (meaning faithless), Jacob then dunks him in the ocean -- the ritual of baptism. Richard is then pulled out and knows he is not dead (meaning his faith is restored), and he is now born-again.

Up until Titus came on to the screen, it was pretty slow. I felt like we spent half of it with Richard in chains. I mean, as much I love the fact that Richard was NOT the captain and him getting immorality made sense, it felt really slow. I think they could have inserted more of the other stuff. Then again, I agree that I just want to be entertained more than have questions answered even though the season is practically almost half over.

I liked the episode for the most part. I thought this was definitely one of the better ones of the season. The first 20 minutes or so dragged. The love story part was kinda lame. I mean, we don't know much about Richard, and expecting us to care about his love story in 45 minutes is a bit much. Nestor and his eye liner rocked it tonight.

Oh, I could have done without FLocke turning to the camera after Richard and the Ghost Whisperer's conversation. Break the 4th wall much? Seriously, it was a good episode. I hope it starts an upward trend

I am torn. If I take a step back and think of the episode as a singular entity, it was good. But as the 8th to last episode of a show I have spent 5 years watching... not so much. I know we are getting answers, but they are answers to questions posed more than half way through the show's run. This episode, and this whole season to an extent seem like the first season of what would be a good show. So many new characters and situations and soooo many dangling questions.

Call me crazy, but I want to know about the whispers, and Walt and the infertility. Yes, these questions are 4 years old, but just replacing them with myriad new questions and then providing answers to the new questions is not satisfying to me.

Maybe once Jacob saw that Smokey was actively trying to kill him, he decided that despite his policy of non-interference, he needed help from Richard in order to seek out a candidate to replace him should Smokey ever succeed.

This episode actually proved more than any that Richard isn't wearing eyeliner... it's just that Carbonell has the kind of dark, thick eyelashes that former costar Brooke Shields is trying to get women to use medication to get.

But that actually created an interesting effect, as the scenes with a despairing Richard walking around the island looked a lot like a silent movie.

I'm not a structural engineer but how did a wooden ship break a stone statue w/o out being shattered into pieces? And instead wound up landing a 1/2 a mile inland w/ the back end still intact? lame indeed.

I've always trusted crazy people in fiction to tell me what's really going on, so I wondered back then what Leonard meant... actually the line gives me chills, even as I look it up on Lostpedia.

The Pandora's "Box" perchance?

Also remember Benjamin Linus: "Let me put it so you'll understand. Picture a box. You know something about boxes, don't you John? What if I told you that, somewhere on this island, there is a very large box and whatever you imagined, whatever you wanted to be in it when you opened that box, there it would be? What would you say about that, John?"

This never got paid off on the show and had me wondering... allegedly it's still on the island... or is it the island itself?

Other stuff:

- One of my pet theories, that Flocke could leave the island as easily as Jacob was shot down (and that Flocke still wanted to leave, but desired to leave the plane of existence (and return to heaven))

- Enjoyed that Jacob mentioned that past sins meant nothing here to RA. Jacob further mentioned his reasons for lack of involvement... however the execution of Jacob's lack of involvement has been fairly suspect through the course of the show.

- I think we're officially over all of the build up... the car is at the top of the roller-coaster and is on the way down for the rest of the season. Can't wait to see where it goes... but for all those people who say they just want it to be a good story I call "bogus." It is all about the ending and the final answers. We as an audience want to be rewarded for our 6 seasons of patience with answers to the big questions and an ending that polarizes people so that eternal debates about how it "should have ended" persist.

I suspected last week that MIB was being held prisoner on the island by Jacob. I think Jacob doesn't interfere outside the island with people, only the candidates.

No Flash Sideways could mean that Richard doesn't exist off the island. How could he really if he is eternal?

Loved when MIB made the chains comment. When he said it in 1997, I realized it was he was of letting Richard know who he was since he was in Locke's body.

I am stuck on the part when MIB said this about Jacob, "he took my body, he took my humanity." Also how this will all connect to the Flash Sideways.

I think they are doing a great job answering questions. I think I can take all the ones we were given tonight at face value, why Richard lives forever, the analogy of the island not a mechanism to contain evil, and Jacob hoping for the good in people he brings and MIB expecting the bad. Finally that first he had to kill Jacob and then he could get off the island. I believe he needs a replacement as well first to leave.

I enjoyed it BUT in a season that is shaping up to be the biggest deviation of the 6 seasons, this ep was the biggest deviation of the series. Began with a flashback of one character (Ilana), then almost all flashback about another character in a farflung past that is largely removed from our idea of what 'Lost' is, about a peripheral character acting contrary to every scene we've ever seen of him. Enjoyable, but it still didn't quite work for me.

I was hoping Darlton would dig back into their love of Watchmen on this one and bring us a Dr. Manhattan on Mars-ish existential meditation on mortality as viewed by an outsider. Maybe we could have seen him found the Others, teaching them all latin, being an advisor to changing leaders, intermediary to Jacob over decades, etc. Instead we learn that being 160 years old hasn't made our man any smarter than his peasant in the boonies origin.

We're 9 out of 18 hours into season 6 and none of my 10 deal breaker mysteries have been answered. 1. Eloise Hawking's omniscience (Flashes Before Your Eyes). 2. Why do pregnant women die post 1977? 3. Why do the Others kidnap kids? 4. What was up with Walt? 5. What are the flash sideways? 6. What are the "rules" for Ben & Widmore? 7. What are the "rules" for Jacob and Smoke Monster? 8. What is the "infection" as it pertains to Sayid/Claire? 9. What is up with Christian Shephard? 10. Are we supposed to accept that Dogen died by being drowned in the same hot tub life machine that saved Sayid's life just 4 eps earlier?

Here's hoping Lost reverses course and pulls off a miracle in the second half of the final season.

I am completely baffled that a review of an episode in which we saw both Titus Welliver and a pig (boar) sniffing at a dead body, there was no mention of Mr. Wu's pigs. But, as always, my brain always goes to Deadwood first.

I thought it was great, but while it answered or clarified a few things, it still confused me on a few fronts. For one, this obviously takes place after the scene on the beach in "The Incident," and yet the Man in Black seems to be announcing his intent to kill Jacob for the first time. Maybe that was just me.

Also, why was Jacob so aggressive? Perhaps he's tired of being on the island? I thought it was interesting, but they're obviously gonna have to explain that.

Richard's origin story was great, but if we accept that he is the voice of Jacob, stepping in to prevent the violence that the people on the island always commit, then what about when the Others/Hostiles killed the army guys, or their ongoing feud with DHARMA, or, I dunno, the friggin DHARMA purge? Seems like a lot of killing encouraged, allowed or possibly perpetrated by Jacob's voice of reason.

Still, I loved the episode, and I'm confident it'll all come together.

So what was in the medicine that the doctor in the Canary Islands was going to come up with to give to Ricardo (not yet Richard) to save his wife? She had a high fever and was coughing up blood. She likely had a major infection. It was 1867. There wasn't much to give her.

Drifter said: 1. Eloise Hawking's omniscience (Flashes Before Your Eyes). 2. Why do pregnant women die post 1977? 3. Why do the Others kidnap kids? 4. What was up with Walt? 5. What are the flash sideways? 6. What are the "rules" for Ben & Widmore? 7. What are the "rules" for Jacob and Smoke Monster? 8. What is the "infection" as it pertains to Sayid/Claire? 9. What is up with Christian Shephard? 10. Are we supposed to accept that Dogen died by being drowned in the same hot tub life machine that saved Sayid's life just 4 eps earlier?

1)She's not. 2) The Incident. 3) They can't have kids of their own, so they steal other people's. 4) Dunno. 5) Dunno yet, but that's almost certainly going to be answered. 6) Probably a gentlemen's agreement not to attack each others' family. 7) As far as I can tell, Smokey can't personally hurt Jacob, and is stopped by ash. 8) Dunno, but probably a part of Smokey is in them. 9) Good question. 10) Yes, it stopped working when Jacob died. Sayid was saved by other means.

Here's the lostpedia description of Desmond's first meeting with Eloise Hawking in the season 3 episode, "Flashes Before Your Eyes":

"Some time later, Desmond looks at diamond rings in a shop. Ms. Hawking, the shop keeper, aids him in his browsing, finding him the perfect one for his price range. He says he'll take the ring, but is taken aback when she says "no, you won't." Ms. Hawking tells the astonished Desmond that he isn't supposed to take the ring, because his not buying it led to his original fate of ending up on the island and turning the fail-safe key. She also states that "if you don't do those things, Desmond David Hume, every single one of us is dead."

"Ms. Hawking points out a man wearing red shoes.Ms. Hawking decides that Desmond needs persuasion and brings him outside. She buys some chestnuts from a street vendor and points out a man wearing red shoes. Desmond theorizes that she is really his subconscious but she only smiles. Desmond says he is determined to marry Penny, but Ms. Hawking is confident that that won't happen. Suddenly, scaffolding falls on the man wearing red shoes, and Desmond accuses Ms. Hawking of knowing what would happen, asking why she didn't try to stop it. She says it was his fate to die and that no one can change their fate; if she'd warned him, he would have died anyway from something else. If someone manages to forestall fate, the universe will "course correct" itself and find another way of forcing them back on their prescribed path. Desmond, however, refuses to concede that he is a slave to the universe, and takes the ring anyway."

Maybe she's not omniscient, but she certainly seems to know a lot about what certain people's fates are. So the question still remains: how does she know all this stuff?

"1. Eloise Hawking's omniscience (Flashes Before Your Eyes). 2. Why do pregnant women die post 1977? 3. Why do the Others kidnap kids? 4. What was up with Walt? 5. What are the flash sideways? 6. What are the "rules" for Ben & Widmore? 7. What are the "rules" for Jacob and Smoke Monster? 8. What is the "infection" as it pertains to Sayid/Claire? 9. What is up with Christian Shephard? 10. Are we supposed to accept that Dogen died by being drowned in the same hot tub life machine that saved Sayid's life just 4 eps earlier?"

1. She had her son's journal. That's why she has no idea what happens after 2007. I don't know how she knew about the red shoe guy, but it's not very important.2. Maybe the Incident. We will see.3. Because they can't have children I guess. To recruit. Anyway, they kidnap people of any ages not just children.4-5-6-7-8: Let's wait for the answers.9. He was the Man in Black.10. The hot tub did *not* save Sayid, that was made very clear. So yes he is dead.

I enjoyed the episode as a long awaited showcase behind Richard's story, but as I've been saying for a few weeks now, really not liking the whole Jacob is the protector and good guy and The Man in Black is the devil idea, which in this epsiode, was more explicitly confirmed in this episode. I still like the show and its characters and will of course watch it til the end, but I am sorely disappointed in the 'mystery' part of the show for now.(Unless we get some huge mindfrak, which would be great.)

UGH. Is it just me, or is Jacob just kind of this insufferable God type guy who thinks he's always doing the right thing and be all high and mighty about it(letting people have 'free will', yet basically forcing them to be imprisoned on this island (and thus Smokey killing all those people, I can't help but think Jacob is an accessory), and in Richard's case (or perhaps like Jack thinks, ALL of who Jacob touched, immortality, giving them such limited information (like someone said earlier, why did Richard get a chance to sit down and talk with Jacob whereas Ben didn't,etc) to make their 'moral' choices (which is more of a choice of "you're either with him or you're with me", which makes me root for Sawyer who wants no part of it and would follow neither)?

I don't know, Jacob just rubs me the wrong way and having his godlike status as the 'good guy' somewhat validated in this episode makes me really, really annoyed. (And wishes more than anything that Sawyer - the atheist? - will be the one who wins this stupid game, becaue he chose his own way rather than following either Jacob or Smokey).

belinda said: UGH. Is it just me, or is Jacob just kind of this insufferable God type guy who thinks he's always doing the right thing and be all high and mighty about it(letting people have 'free will', yet basically forcing them to be imprisoned on this island (and thus Smokey killing all those people, I can't help but think Jacob is an accessory)

Screw that. What about the far greater number of people who died in Jacob's actions getting people on the island at all. The boat wreck kill most of the Black Rock crew. The plane crashes kill most of the people on board. Jacob killed far more than the MIB ever could.

While I don't think this was a bad episode, I agree with some of the other commenters that this is a missed opportunity. What is interesting about Richard is that he has an eyewitness view on 150 years on the island. He has seen the beginning of the Dharma Initiative, the choosing of island leaders like Ben and Locke, advised/supervised children being stolen from their families, etc. There's a lot of insight that he could offer, in particular about how people do (or don't) change over time. And the episode suggested to an extent that he hasn't learned anything in 150 years--even what seems to be obvious, that Smokey was lying about seeing his wife (and was the one who posed as her in the past).

"I've been here longer than you could possibly imagine" was right there in the Previously.. Umm, I can imagine 150 years. It's a bit longer than a record lifespan. And what's with the latinised "Ricardus"?

Been watching since Day 1. Even watch some of those pop-up episodes. I know Lost and senator, this was not Lost. Worst Lost ever. Ever. End of story. I can't believe we get this episode among the final 8. Unreal.

Alan, first off-- you're such a fine writer, and I thank you not only for these great LOST notes, but for all the great observation and writing you do.

As for the Boylan family, we were really disspirited with this episode. (Sorry to disagree with you.) My teenagers felt the first half-hour played out like "some cliched pirate romance movie." I mostly agree.

I felt as if most of the stuff that was "revealed" at last about Richard we already knew. Didn't we? We knew that he'd come to the island on the Black Rock (from Smokey's "good to see you out of those chains.") And we assume he's immortal as a gift from Jacob, right? So what exactly was revealed?

I for one have always hated the s & m touches the writers adore-- has a show EVER given its fans so many scenes of people being whipped and tortured, burned with hot pokers, or, in this case, chained to a wall while dying of thirst? I said "Enough" to all of this during the needless hot poker scene with Sayid earlier this season. I was SO ready for Ricardo to get off of the freakin' Black Rock and start doing things I had not guessed at earlier.

I never thought I'd miss the "flash sideways," but I did last night. This is one of the first LOST episodes ever to pretty much stay in one flashback for the full hour. I really did miss the point/counterpoint the show usually gives us between past and present (or future). And hey-- the "present" character was Ilana, not Richard. About whom, I'm sorry, am I supposed to care?

I did like seeing Jacob and Smokey Classic; that was satisfying. (They're playing a game of good and evil! Who'd have EVER guessed!) And loved, as always, every single moment of Hurley.

Big, big expectations for last night. Not really satisfied, at least not in that "I never saw that coming" way we love.

But will we keep watching every single moment until May? You'd better believe it.

Well, I got to say Lost is always surprising me and this week's episode it happened again.I got myself unbelieving when i first saw ricardus back on the old ages.Come on that was great.I'm sure it's on my "greatest hits", of course i'm mentioning charlies's speech at the third season as he turned out.So I have to say the lost's misteries has finally been solved, and that cheers me up, cause ive never had any idea of how the hell the Black Rock got landed into the Island, either how the statue was broken, and this episode was good on telling us all this.

I loved this episode, but two bits that bothered me – 1 the implausibility of a wooden ship breaking the statue, although given all the other unbelievable happenings (primarily that anyone survived the plane crash), I can let this go.

2 The timeline of the Black Rock – this one I think is a continuity error. In The Constant, it is stated that “The Black Rock set sail from Portsmouth England on March 22, 1845 on a trading mission to the kingdom of Siam, when she was tragically lost at sea. The only known artifact of this journey is the journal of the ship's first mate, which was discovered among the artifacts of pirates on the Ile Sante-Marie off the coast of Madagascar seven years later.” So….it’s implied that noone heard from the Black Rock after 1845 – what happened in the 2 years between the time it left Portsmouth and its arrival at the Canary Islands?

Chijip 12:21 - …I assume the hostiles were just other people Jacob brought to the island at various points, but why did none of them side with Smokey? …

I think we got a glimpse of this when we saw Rousseau's backstory in Season 5 (This Place is Death). Smokey did "infect" some of Rousseau's team, but when she realized thay had changed, she killed them. This was the story for one group of people who arrived on the island; we can assume the stories for other groups might be similar.

Josh 1:21 If the whole damn series was always gonna boil down to an epic struggle between two supernatural characters, then I would have liked to have met the characters at some point in the first 5 f-ing seasons (or until the 5th finale if you like).

In a way, we did. The smoke monster appeared (albeit not as "smoke") in the Pilot episode, and we first heard of Jacob in Season 3.

BTW Alan you complain about characters not sharing information, I think we finally saw why those scenes with character sharing information don't work. The scene with Ben & Illana filling in Jack/Frank on Richard was the only scene in this episode that did not work for me.

Yes, something like that. Especially as Jacob certainly isn't much of a representative for good, the way he let Ricardo's (unfounded, by Catholic dogma -- sincere repentance is always accepted, and you might still earn lots of Purgatory time but you won't go to Hell) fear of damnation trap him. He was as much a liar (if only by omission) as the priest in that respect.

I did have another thought though. These 2 guys have an awful lot of power (Jacob can grant eternal life) but are not all powerful (can't give absolution) makes me wonder if they're not candidates for something themselves.

Some interesting parallels coming to light in this episode. The most notable to me is the cork theory. Jacob must keep Smokey at bay, and requires a successor (which I assume means he knew Smokey would kill him), and how the island contains an energy that must be kept at bay, lest both destroy the world. Desmond was the successor, the keeper of the energy in a sense. He was in essence Jacob in a manner of speaking, so I think that's why the rules didn't apply to him. Also, the Widmore/Ben and Jacob/Smokey parallel. The more I think about it, the more I lean towards Widmore wanting to somehow contain and use Smokey for his own gain. Widmore understands the true power of the island, and that smokey is somehow connected to the power source within the island.

Overall great episode. I loved learning more about Richard, I felt like they answered and clarified a lot of things, and the struggle is clearly defined. Smokey can't leave until all the candidates are dead, as each one holds power over him. I don't think Smokey can kill anyone that Jacob has touched, either. At least not directly.

One other note, I believe I know why Smokey spared and then killed Eko. He would judge a persons soul, seeking the darkness in their heart that he could manipulate. He first finds Eko with that Darkness, and he feels he can use him to kill Jacob. Once Eko is at peace, he is no longer useful. Richard had that darkness, but was saved by Jacob in a manner of speaking, and Smokey had no power over him anymore.

Two things...there's a difference between not aging and being immortal. If Richard cannot die, then what does he have to fear from the MiB? Also, how did he think he was going to kill himself? Second thing, where did Richard's wrist wounds go? My husband and I both thought he'd be screaming in pain when Jacob dunked him in the ocean because of the salt water hitting those wounds. Did MiB or Jacob heal them?

It kind of boggles my mind that people complain that we didn't learn anything new. People say that we already knew Richard was on the Black Rock and Jacob gave him eternal life, but we had absolutely no idea what the context of any of this was. I just feel like so many people want things both ways; they think they have figured everything out so when things are clarified they think it's pointless...but at the same time when certain things are left vague people cry foul. It's like saying that we probably knew Locke ended up in a wheel chair because of his Dad so that it was pointless to see that play out. To ground these answers/clarifications within an emotional story made everything much more enjoyable and satisfying to me. This episode was one that everyone has been waiting for a long time, and I'm sure it was bound to disappoint some regardless of the story it told, but I think as an hour of television and a big chunk of the Lost mythology puzzle that it was outstanding.

JinNJ wrote:>>Two things...there's a difference between not aging and being immortal. If Richard cannot die, then what does he have to fear from the MiB?>>

We already established that he can't die by natural means nor by his own hand. But if someone else whacks him, he is probably going to die (see: trying to get Jack to kill him). That plan failed 'cause Jack needs to not die too.

My theory is that whatever the answer to what the island is, it will be lame. I don’t want it to be, I just don’t expect much anymore.

Like most of them this season, that episode just kind of crept along too slowly with too much detail in the back story. I was expecting (Ricky) Ricardo's story to be a lot more mind blowing than that. I cannot help but think I am in for a giant let down at the end (which could just be the fault of all the hype and not because it was a badly written final season by Darlton.)

Richard flipped from MiB to Jacob pretty darn quick. How does a ship that is high enough to hit the top of a statue not shatter into a million pieces when it hits the ground? That scene alone had me doing "Really" like Seth Myers and Amy Poehler (not Jerry Seinfeld.)

No argument that the acting has been top notch this season but the story seems too rushed and too slow in the same episodes.

This is where LOST is starting to annoy me - everyone's carrying the damn idiot ball

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IdiotBall

Waaaaaaaa! He said he had a plan, and now he's gone (even though I know Hurley can/has spoken to him) so, despite knowing the stakes, I'm going to go and help what may be the Devil! That'll show him! Even though he's dead.

As for the discrepancy of the Block Rock day/night, I am going to give a little insight as someone who sails. With todays light boats, carbon fiber sails it can still take all day to deliver a boat 20 miles, without using any auxillary power. Now take a huge wooden hulled sailboat, weighed down with supplies, slaves, crew, etc...add in a headwind or no wind, and that boat could easily bob around out there for hours or days. There have been modern day races where boats have sat in nearly the same spot for days and had to drop out of the race and turn on the engines on, since they were going no where and running out of supplies.

So that does not bother me at all.

I liked the episode, at first I thought the man who saved Richard from death was named Widmore, but it was Whitfield.

"I am torn. If I take a step back and think of the episode as a singular entity, it was good. But as the 8th to last episode of a show I have spent 5 years watching... not so much."

Herein lies the problem that many people have with this last season. I've also seen it articulated that this late in the show's run every episode should be like a season finale.

While I understand the impulse, the show never really implied it was anything other than what we've seen. Cuse and Lindelof have said repeatedly that the show isn't really about the island or the mysteries it's about the characters, primarily the 815 survivors. We may get some answers but all that really matters in this show is using those answers to show us more about these people we've been watching for six years.

The ship at sea was a different one to the Black Rock - it had different superstructure (more galleon-like whereas the BR has a flat deck). This has been written off as continuity but it would now seem to be deliberate.

I was hoping to find out Ricardus has actually been there "longer than you could imagine" and get a nice flashback to a papyrus reed boat or Roman warship. If it turns out the writers are keen of this kind of hyperbole then the whole ending might be very much a damp squib - "Longer than you could possibly imagine" turns out to be 150 years, who knows what else they've been hyping?

Nitpicking from a historian - the British had long since given up the slave trade by 1867. No ship flagged "Portsmouth" would have been in the slave trade, at least not legally. And where were they taking Ricardo that his ability to speak English was so important? Canada? No slavery. USA? Just finished the Civil War. Maybe some other English speaking colony such as Belize or Bermuda? Eh...

Maybe it's because the only question I was demanding an answer to at the beginning of the year was Richard's backstory and age. I was totally happy with the episode from start to finish.

Question: Did Jacob's conversation with Richard on the beach mean that Widmore was at one time a candidate? Jacob told Richard that Richard would act as his proxy and guide the "candidates" that Jacob brought to the island. From that statement, I infer that the Others that Ben met when he was 12 were all candidates brought to the island, Widmore (and Eloise, for that matter) included.

Finally, obviously Alan's got a job to do but the success or failure of LOST will, for me, depend on a second viewing. Did they set out to write a Homeric epic or were they just pulling stuff out of their asses each time they got a season renewal?

Assuming that Hurley is somewhat "the voice of the fan" then the Adam & Eve scene suggests we're going to get one answer that is supposed to allow us to resolve everything, not a series of micro-answers.

This doesn't excuse 121 hours of wishing Jack would just stop being a massive cock (I so, so, so wanted him to explode).

I'm glad to finally find a solid contingent of people who were bored stiff by the episode (even if we do seem to be the minority here).

Maybe Lost just isn't as involving for me as other shows (or as it is for other people), but it's never occurred to me that we needed an entire episode about Richard. Moreover, nothing about the extended flashback struck me as so vital (or so compellingly realized) that it couldn't have been delivered in a third of the time via another route, even a modestly sized monologue. I know this would violate the "show don't tell" precept, but, for me, this episode was an effective case for the rule's inverse.

Not that some of it wasn't good. I did enjoy the cork and bottle metaphor, and I agree that Titus Welliver is always welcome. Of all the things this episode (or, the show at this point) could be explaining, I'd rather know why the Man In Black can't just murder jacob himself, rather than by proxy. That seeming "rule" smacks of the show's silliest contrivances (like the unexplained importance of the Oceanic 6 recreating the circumstances of the Oceanic 815 flight in order to return to the island).

At this point, with so little time left, every episode has an opportunity cost and for me this week's was huge.

Just while I'm bringing up rewatching though, wouldn't you have to be a massive idiot to buy/produce a box set of LOST before it's all done?

All the director's commentary, extra features etc with absolutely no context for what's happening on screen - "Umm, now Jack's doing this, but, umm, best not ask why, just yet, and, umm, this is called back to in a few seasons, but we've not written them yet"

Back when folks were specualting about the Egyptian God represented by the statue, Sobek's name was tossed around. While the statue was later revealed to be Taweret, Sobek is still interesting in that he was not a direct interventionist. Sobek is more of a manipulator, nudging things along from afar.

As the show seems to be pulling from multiple religions and philosophies, I think this interpreation of Jakob's actions is relevant. It also ties into the theme of free will. Jakob set things in motion but, without free will, no one's actions would have any moral consequences. Jakob has given man free will while the man in black believes that people are destined to violence, death and conflict

I've been kind of shocked at the split reaction to this episode, as I thought it was a top-fiver. And it got me to thinking, and I've come to a conclusion. Carlton and Cuse, while trying to do the right thing in terms of fan service, made a huge error in judgement when they said before the season started that they weren't going to answer all the questions. I understand why they did this, but I think it's had the opposite effect. If they'd never said anything I think people would be watching the season much more organically, letting the events unfold as they were meant to. Instead, now people watch each episode with a scorecard, trying to keep track of what questions were answered and what questions weren't. I mean, we're only halfway through the season. Should we really be concerned with nine hours of television left what has and hasn't been answered at this point? I've decided I no longer care about what does and doesn't get answered. I'll sort through all that when the series is over. But for now, I'm just going to enjoy it while it lasts.

Great episode, whether as part of the continuing saga or as a stand-alone. It reminded me of Charles Beaumont's classic story for The Twilight Zone called "The Howling Man," where the Devil has been kept prisoner in a monastery for hundreds of years, and tricks a unwitting visitor who stumbled upon the monastery into setting him free by convincing him that his captors are the evil ones.

For reasons I barely understand - grim curiosity, I guess - I'm currently steamrolling through my personal Lost marathon, after not having seen the show since mid-second season. This is certainly a radically different viewing experience than the one people have had watching the show as it aired. Frankly, I'm not enjoying it very much (and yet I go on!), and there's several reasons why I'm not the ideal audience for the show, but my take is that whereas I generally enjoy serialized dramas more when I watch them via DVD marathon, Lost is suffering for it (at least at the point I'm at). And the show I'm watching is...hard to relate to the show getting talked about here (I'm at the end of Season 3). Since I've read about the plot of seasons 4-6, I know what might or might not be getting woven in along the way, and I still don't get it.

OTOH, lots of people thought the Battlestar finale's use of the supernatural was a copout, whereas I thought it was clearly telegraphed from the first season. So it's just one man's opinion over here.

Flocke gave a big clue to his identity, but I haven't connected it to an ancient figure yet. "I had a crazy mother" and "spent a long time working that out" (or something to that effect). Does anyone have an idea here? Greek? Egyptian?

Thanks - I'm of the opinion that when I go back and watch it, I'll think less of it. "Even the f###ing trees walk", as Kevin Smith put it by proxy - whole arcs of meaningless filler and a confused idea of where they're going.

Katie said... Such a great episode. Sometimes you need to just sit back and enjoy the ride. Nitpicking the storm (how many times has the weather changed in an instant especially when entering that close to the island) or the crash through a statue. Hello there is a man who turns into black smoke! You just have to take somethings for what they are- this is the island after all. I have been waiting for this episode for a long time and it was more than worth the wait. I am sitting back and enjoying this season and enjoying it for what it is, I won't allow myself to be disappointed. The more you try to read into the little things at this point, the unhappier you will be in the end. Sometimes you just have to sit back and let the black smoke take you.

If Craphole Island is the cork over a hellmouth (wonder if Darlton are Buffy fans?) or something to that effect, then there must be a direct significance of the island being underwater in the flash sideways, right? Either the island has firmly been placed deeper in the mythical bottle or the MiB escaped. It must be one or the other...right?

This episode really gives credence to everyone needing to protect "the island" and not the people on it, as the island is in and of itself the most important piece of the puzzle.

For the record, I really enjoyed this episode, and like how we got some definitive answers...and we still don't have a totally clear idea of what is going on yet.

Instead of getting to know Richard as he watches generations of people try and fail to resist the draw of evil, we got a very random love story.

But it wasn't a random love story. It was the reason why Richard has immortality. And wasn't that one of the questions most people wanted to know? Why Richard has lived for so long? I understand the appeal of wanting to watch Richard watch other people try and fail etc. but I'm happier knowing why Richard has lived for so long. And the fact that it was basically because of love warms even my cold, black heart.

@Michaelangelo-I think that's a solid theory. People are freaked out over answers, because they know all questions won't be answered, and they want their particular question answered. I'm as guilty as anyone, since I said after last night's episode that I could watch the rest of the show in peace because I got Richard's backstory and that's ALL I really wanted from this season.

Regarding the language spoken - I know that I don't really want to watch an entire hour of Lost where the characters speak in their native language and I'm forced to read subtitles. I don't need that much realism. :)

I'm a little baffled by the episode, however one thing I'm not buying is Jacob = good, Smokey = evil. I strongly doubt it'll be that clear cut in the end. The writer's want this show to be something people can go on debating, even after it's finished. I'm thinking somewhere along the lines of: Jacob does good things for bad reasons, Smokey does bad things for good reasons. Something balanced like that, where it's ultimately very tricky to determine who you really feel is 'right' or 'wrong', 'good' or 'bad'.(Although after writing this I noticed I'm a little biased towards the idea of the MiB just being a misunderstood 'good guy', but at the same time I'm sure Jacob will have his justified reasons too).

I think Jacob manipulated Richard from the beginning, particularly as the very first thing he asks Richard is who gave him the sword, a question he surely already knew the answer to?

In contrast to this, the MiB is honest and doesn't try to hide the fact that that he is the smoke monster from Richard, openly admitting it to him early on. And although quite cut throat and harsh, he's straight to the point with the conditions on which he releases Richard from the chains. He doesn't even bother pretending to be 'the charitable friendly nice guy', (possibly a sign of how weary he is of being on the island).

Jacob also seemed to take some sadistic pleasure in his 'trapping' of the MiB, taunting him with the wine bottle. MiB to me comes across as genuinely frustrated and just wanting to go home. He sounds desperate at the end of the episode when he says, "just let me leave Jacob'.

It also sounds like Jacob has tricked the MiB into his current role, "the devil betrayed me, took my body and humanity", possibly why he now see's Jacob as the devil?

And whose body is he assuming as Titus Welliver? This is presumably not his real form, as the 'devil' took his original body. Does this then suggest that the body of Jacob actually belongs to the MiB? Further to the mystery of who (and/or what), is Jacob?!!

Maybe they're both necessary to contain 'hell/malevolance', but for the MiB to leave, both 'posts' have to be filled by willing participants. Jacob seems to enjoy his role on the island, MiB doesn't enjoy his. Hence Jacob wants to stay and carry on, MiB is sick of it and just really wants to go home. Maybe Jacob doesn't have a home he wishes to go back to. (Where-ever, and, when-ever, their homes might be?).

To me alot of the mythology now seems to boil down to the 'rules'. What are the origins and purpose of the rules? Why can Jacob be replaced when he dies, but for the MiB to be replaced, he needs Jacob dead? (i.e. when he tells Ben that he needs someone to replace him to be in charge of the island when he leaves). Why can't he kill candidates? Why can't he kill Jacob himself? Does anyone else get the impression that Jacob can only be killed inside the statue (possibly also only with that special dagger)? Hence people only allowed in if they're invited in by Jacob?

It seems that Jacob can possibly assume ghost forms, whether or not their bodies were ever on the island, whilst MiB can only assume bodies of dead people on the island, although these are visible and tangible to everyone. I'm thinking this because all ghost appearances appear to be supporting Jacob's goals, and particularly because the MiB would presumably not choose appear as a ghost telling Hurley etc, to prevent himself finally leaving.

I think I've rambled way too long already, and like all 'losties' I could keep going and going! But still, any thoughts or opinions on my ramblings from anyone would be much appreciated! :)

Why did Smokey stop at Ricardo/Ricardus/Richard? Why did he not kill him??????

Also - with the whole dialog between him and Jacob during that fight scene, his outburst at the beach with the Losties and later, Jacob and MIB - I half expected to hear the words - All of this has happened before and all of this will happen again.

Nice callback on the fans' theory of this whole place being hell. Would have been a complete and utter cop-out - so I really wasn't expecting that to happen.

Question - what is so damned different about the Flocke-evil that he needs to be kept on the Island??? And what about the Island keeps him there??? I mean c'mon - he tempts people to sin??? So do about a bagillion things in this world!!!

It amazes me that some people here still cry when certain things are not yet revealed. LOST has operated this way for 120-something episodes. It reveals answers bit by bit and at a much slower pace than many would like. This is nothing new. If you don't like it, then why continue to watch?

And if Darlton revealed the answers to those ten questions, then where would be the excitement for coming episodes? They have to string us along to keep us watching.

I love what they are doing with season 6. I look at current shows that have been on for a while (How I met Your Mother, The Office) and I notice that they have both gone downhill significantly. Why? Because it's the same characters and eventually their mannerisms, affectations, and stories get stale. The greatest show of all time, The Wire, introduced brand new characters every season, and that is one of the reasons that made it work so well.

I don't need to see another hour about Sayid, or Jin. I get who they are, and why they act the way they do. If LOST only focused on the 815ers, it would become stale.

My favorite characters are Ben, Desmond and Eko. None of them were in the first season. If we had six seasons of just the original Losties, I would not still be watching.

I just had an epiphany. Have the 6 that have been chosen all killed someone be it on purpose or by mistake? And is that why the smoke monster can't kill them, just like it couldn't/didn't kill Ricardo? I'm trying to think back, but my memory is a bit fuzzy.

In a way, we did. The smoke monster appeared (albeit not as "smoke") in the Pilot episode, and we first heard of Jacob in Season 3.

It makes me wonder who was really in the cabin, Jacob-as-Locke or the Flocke we have now, too. The cabin was destroyed afte the ash around it was disturbed, but was it destroyed from without or within?

@Gridlock, I'm the kind of "massive idiot" who's been buying the LOST DVD seasons for about three seasons now. I like being able to pop in a season whenever I like and I like the bonus features.

Why did Smokey stop at Ricardo/Ricardus/Richard? Why did he not kill him??????

I think he saw something he could use in Richard (i.e., desire to get off the island and get his wife back). Unfortunately for him, Richard listened to Jacob.

Kelly said: But it wasn't a random love story. It was the reason why Richard has immortality. And wasn't that one of the questions most people wanted to know? Why Richard has lived for so long? I understand the appeal of wanting to watch Richard watch other people try and fail etc. but I'm happier knowing why Richard has lived for so long.

Why?

That Richard lived as long as he has is interesting.

What has happened to him in his extraordinarily long life is very important. And unanswered

How he got that way was mind-numbingly obvious. Jacob granted him immortality. Duh. If you hadn't already assumed that, I dunno what to tell you. It wasn't subtle.

If you think there were answers in this episode, you are just dense. Everything that was supposedly answered should have been obvious for while now. The only thing Alan mentions in his blog that shouldn't have been obviously long before this is what happened to the statue. And that's the dumbest part of the episode. Freakin' hell, the statue's destruction should have been a symbol of just how long this fight has been going on, not a random accident 150 years ago.

This episode was terrible. One of the worst of the entire series. The performances by the various actors are its only redeeming qualities. The writers should be embarrassed for taking such an easy job and messing it up so badly.

Hugo had several deaths on his conscience. All the deaths with the lottery, and then the incident with the deck. Jin assaulted many people, and didn't he kill the man his Sun was having an affair with?

The 'soapy drama' character bits are NOT the best done, they will never compare to real shows or films with long-term character development, but in the TV format it's absolutely necessary, and they pulled a good one off this time. (no kate)

If they didn't have character drama they would be in sci-fi niche hell.

Character drama is what gets my girlfriend to at least stay on the couch and watch with me.

We stay up afterwards and had some fun discussions about theories and such.

I'm starting to think that hardcore lostophiles are actually jealous of 'easily given secrets' and would rather stay confused and nitpick the tiniest details into oblivion rather than have the series wrap up the loose ends.

I loved this episode, and I hope that there is plenty more 'science vs. spirituality' to be had in the final 9 or 10 hours.

Were the revelations of this episode pretty spiritual? Sure. But we have yet to see the origins of the spiritual leaders

You know, after spending some time reading a lot of posts and recaps, and after spending even more time writing up some thoughts of my own on my blog, I've come to the conclusion that Jacob didn't bring the Black Rock to the Island; Smokey did. He brought the slavers there looking to jump start his loophole plan, and I think there were a number of things last night to support that theory.

1. People wonder about the difference in the weather during the scene between Jacob and MiB we saw last season and the weather during the Black Rock arrival. Perhaps that scene was a much earlier time and a different ship, and Jacob was bringing it in much more gently than the MiB choose to do with the Black Rock, which Smokey may have thought necessary to both scare the bejesus out of the passengers and keep the ship far away from the shoreline where Jacob hung out.

2. That would explain the tetchy, frustrated, ass-kicking Jacob we saw last night. Between the scene we saw last season and the one we saw last night, Jacob obviously had not yet been able to win his bet with the MiB, and so that would account for the very different seeming Jacob we witnessed last night. And it would account for why he was so surprised to see Richard. If Jacob had really brought Richard to the Island, then I think it would have been dramatized differently. Jacob genuinely seemed to have no idea who Richard was or what he was doing there.

3. That would change the white stone gift from Jacob to the MiB from a minor and cheesy plot point to one fraught with meaning. The MiB brought the Black Rock to the Island, and Jacob was rubbing Smokey's nose in his first defeat in this War of the Island with the white rock. So, the white rock wasn't so much a portentous symbol as a joke Jacob was playing on Smokey.

4. Jacob was also likely pissed at the destruction of his statue home, for nothing we saw last night would explain even remotely why Jacob wanted to destroy the statue, but the show definitely made sense if you accept that destroying the statue was the MiB's first symbolic shot at Jacob in this war.

I leave the rest of my BS to my own blog. Hope someone will come over and let me know what they think, for good or for ill, as it is my first recap ever.

"How he got that way was mind-numbingly obvious. Jacob granted him immortality. Duh. If you hadn't already assumed that, I dunno what to tell you. It wasn't subtle."

Was it fairly easy to guess how Ricahard became immortal? Sure. But as with most things on this show, the interesting part is not so much the how but the why.

"If you think there were answers in this episode, you are just dense. Everything that was supposedly answered should have been obvious for while now."

Was calling people dense really necessary? You may not have seen the value in the revelations but there was cleary information in this episode we didn't already have and even more that had not been confirmed.

We had no idea who Richard was before the island nor why he became Jacob's instrument. That information may not be interesting to some viewers but it is certainly new. Apologies if this crosses any lines Alan.

Sun, I believe, may have killed her English speaking lover way back in S3 (can't remember if the killer was ambiguous or not).

As far as "obvious" answers, it does seem that most of the answers we've been given this season have been theorized or guessed at by at least one person, on one comment board in the last 5 years, and so they seem pretty "obvious" to many people, and thus not necessary to address during the course of the show.

However, for a large section of viewers, those "answers" were nothing more than theory until the show itself confirmed them. Yes, most of us THEORIZED that Jacob gave Richard his immortality, but we did not KNOW this for sure until last night. Most of us THEORIZED that the MIB=Smokey, but we weren't positive until the show confirmed it. But none of us (unless you've been reading spoilers) knew WHY. The why, the context of the situation surrounding the answer is far more important to me than the answers themselves, which is why I personally enjoyed last night's episode so much.

I personally think Cabin Fever was a character story rather than a big mythology story. The main mythology we got in it was that the Island had been looking for Locke for a long time. But the reasons why, as revealed in subsequent episodes, are about Locke's character.

I find that the flashbacks in Cabin Fever take on more poignancy with each new John Locke reveal---first the reveal of his death (S4 finale), then his sacrifice to get Jack and everyone to come back (Jeremy Bentham), then the fact that he really was dead and not resurrected by the Island (The Incident), then the reveal that he was tricked into thinking the Island loved him as part of a very long con (The Incident/LA X), and finally the suggestion that it all could've been avoided had he been able to accept himself for who he was (The Substitute). Cabin Fever is so tragic in retrospect that it's almost hard to watch.

"If it turns out that the man-in-black's name is Randall Flagg, I'm going to be ECSTATIC." Fixed. (grin)

Since I've been filtering the series through Stephen King's oeuvre, particularly "The Stand" and "The Dark Tower" series, I would be delighted.

No-brainer (for me) - Hurley should be Jacob's replacement. He is a genuinely kind soul. However, I don't think there is going to be need for a replacement (on the island anyway). Remember Jacob's words to MIB in last season's finale, "It only ends once. All the rest is progress." Apparently there are only six candidates left (I think Jin and Sun are both being considered) and we saw the island submerged in this season's opener. All that remains is for the end game to be played out.

@Manton:"If Craphole Island is the cork over a hellmouth (wonder if Darlton are Buffy fans?) or something to that effect, then there must be a direct significance of the island being underwater in the flash sideways, right? Either the island has firmly been placed deeper in the mythical bottle or the MiB escaped. It must be one or the other...right?"

Ooh, I like that. Perhaps we are seeing that what Jacob is protecting really isn't that dangerous, that he's built it up in his mind to justify the games he plays, but really MiB is more dangerous on-island than off?

I've been thinking a bit more about the whole free will thing, and Jacob's take is still not clear to me. MiB believes men are corruptible, which they obviously are (although perhaps not "prone" to corruption). Jacob believes...what, I suppose, that we are not prone to corruption, but prone to good? If I'm understanding that clearly, it's not really a question of free will. In both cases the characters have a choice, but Jacob and MiB differ on what choice they will make. Apparently, Jacob has been proven wrong over and over and over again.

This all seems very Jobian, with things like the purge being ideas Jacob presents that he *hopes* won't be followed through on. A cruel, cruel game.

We also still have no real sense of how involved he was with the Others, and I think that's essential to determining his overall "goodness". Richard was there, day-to-day while they killed, kidnapped and brainwashed under Ben (and who knows exactly what they did prior to his reign). What instructions was Jacob giving Richard, since most of his interference seems to have been negative?

Also, who did Locke see in the cabin? Ilana led us to believe it wasn't Jacob, but was it the MiB? Did he not have a body? Was he just putting on a show, or was he truly trapped?

I enjoy the questions, so I'm not critiquing the show for not providing answers to all of them right now. I just hope they realize how intricate their tangles are getting.

"but I'm happier knowing why Richard has lived for so long. And the fact that it was basically because of love"

This is not how I interpreted the request. Richard asks for immortality after knowing Jacob cannot absolve him of his sins. Therefore, immorality is the only way Richard can escape eternal damnation in hell, which would presumably be without his wife.

"When Ben comes to kill Jacob, Jacob doesn't try to stop him.

Why did he stop Richard and not Ben? Shouldn't he have given both of them the choice?"

I thought about this too, and I think the distinction was Jacob's point about free will. Richard was coerced and did not know what he was doing, so he was not truly acting of his own accord. Ben, on the other hand, knew exactly what he was doing. Jacob even reaffirmed this when he told Ben "you have a choice."

I assume this distinction is one of their "rules." As Jacob seems to have a general optimism about humanity, he doesn't believe anyone would knowingly kill him if he knew the reality of the situation. This would explain why he's comfortable bringing people to the island when knows that this is the only way he can be destroyed.

black and white..good and evil..two colored stones..jacob and MiB..symbolismI continue to be curious as to the whereabouts of Rose and Bernard..black and whiteTheir commitment to love and each other was a constant on this show..now they're non-important to the cast?I'm missing something?Where are they? Could it be that we are being led by the writers to forget them?.. Could it be..Rose and Bernard somehow figure into taking care of the island? Rose dies in the 'real world', otherwise.And? Where's Vincent? The writers cannot expect us to simply forget about Rose, Bernard, and the dog..can they??

I noticed that when Jacob visited Illyana (sp?) in the hospital that he was wearing all black. Significant? I still think that Jacob is not the good guy of this story. Maybe they will pull a Babylon 5 and say that both Jacob and Smokie are bad guys (just in different ways).

Also, I love the comment about Rose and Bernard also being black & white symbolism. Although perhaps a good version of it... Would be cool if the two of them replace both Jacob and Smokey and change the relationship to a peaceful, positive one.

Question: Did Jacob's conversation with Richard on the beach mean that Widmore was at one time a candidate? Jacob told Richard that Richard would act as his proxy and guide the "candidates" that Jacob brought to the island. From that statement, I infer that the Others that Ben met when he was 12 were all candidates brought to the island, Widmore (and Eloise, for that matter) included.

Jacob said Richard would be his representative to the people he brings to the Island. He didn't say they were candidates. Most of the Others were just people who had been brought to the Island to play out Jacob & Smokey's game and had been recruited onto Jacob's team. Not necessarily candidates.

I feel this is going to be the biggest plothole in the show when all is said and done. Some people above mentioned that she knew the future because in 1977 she received a filled in journal from Daniel Faraday detailing all sorts of future events so that's how she knew she'd need to "leave the island, get a job at a jewelry shop on west 8th street on Monday between 3 and 5pm, June 5th, 1997 to meet a man named Desmond Hume and tell him not to buy an engagement ring so he could get to the island and press a button. Also a man wearing red shoes will be killed when a scaffolding falls on him on a specific intersection in the city at 3:57pm, so make sure you take Desmond there and tell him about course correction." Not only is it unlikely Eloise could act on that kind of info, it's impossible that Faraday would have known about it and then wrote it down in his journal. When Faraday met Desmond in 'The Constant' they didn't go out for beers afterwards to divulge detailed info about convoluted mysterious moments in each other's past so Faraday could write it down.

My biggest problem with the series is from 'The Variable' when Eloise Hawking kills Faraday closing a time loop. If you had just shot the grown up version of the child that was in your stomach you would do any and everything to keep that from repeating. Like starting by, I don't know, maybe not naming your son 'DANIEL FARADAY?' You'd also keep him away from any Physics books his entire life. Even if you assumed Eloise is just a mean woman, she had nothing to gain from trying to make him go back in time to die.

Normally, I root for dark, unhappy endings to science fiction b/c I've read/watched enough sappy, way over-the-top happy-touchy-feely endings for a lifetime (or at least half of one), BUT... if Lost has to have a happy ending, that is the one.

That is pure win. Thanks, dude! If Lost ends--well... "unwell," let's say--I'll just substitute your idea in place of the real ending in my mind. :)

Anonymous 1 said: Did anyone else catch what time period Richard was from? 1863 or there abouts? Does that seem appropriate? Did they still call America the new world then? Kind of felt like it should have been earlier.

Anonymous 2 said:How does a ship going from the Canary Islands (near Morocco) to the "new world" end up in the Pacific Ocean?

Steve said:And where were they taking Ricardo that his ability to speak English was so important? Canada? No slavery. USA? Just finished the Civil War. Maybe some other English speaking colony such as Belize or Bermuda? Eh...

Australia. That explains the use of the "New World" moniker as late as 1867, it explains the geographical location of the ship and it explains the slavery point above. Richard wasn't a slave, he was a prisoner and prisoners were routinely sent to Australia as prison labor. QED.

To everyone wondering about the location of the island: we've been told it moves, so that's covered.

The ship in "The Incident" was almost certainly not The Black Rock.

I've been thinking today, and this just hit me: Richard is the original Other. I guess that seems obvious, so I'll clarify. Before Richard was recruited as Jacob's representative or whatever he is, everyone killed each other or died from some means, as explained by Jacob telling Richard that everyone else that's come before him is dead. So either Richard's presence had a real, positive effect on the people who were brought to the island between 1867 and 1954, the earliest we've seen the Others, or Jacob has him collecting and grooming people such as Charles and Eloise for the benefit of the island, or as candidates.

I'm sure the gaps will be filled in, but I find it interesting that no one survived the tests of the island until after Richard came to be Jacob's voice of reason.

There is an odd issue that episode. Smokey told Alpert to stab Jacob before he speaks or you can't kill him, yet he spoke to Ben and Ben was able to kill him. This is of course opposite of Sayid who tried to kill Smokey after hearing his voice and failed. Somebody better clear that up.

Also other things that need clearing up - Did Jacob bring Dharma to the island? How did Richard leave the island to meet with guys like Locke in real life? Why does Smokey kill some people, but only investigates others and elects not to kill them? How was Ben able to summon Smokey, but not Jacob?

Knowing that Jacob was hands-off, and that we've seen Christian and Claire in the cabin, how do we know that the Cabin wasn't really Smokey? Also, who built the statue, temple, lighthouse, etc.?

Possible theory - Widmore purchased the Black Rock log to get proof that Alpert was 200 years old, thereby fueling his fire to obtain the island for its "fountain of youth".

Mark Russell said:"Also, I love the comment about Rose and Bernard also being black & white symbolism. Although perhaps a good version of it... Would be cool if the two of them replace both Jacob and Smokey and change the relationship to a peaceful, positive one."

"Flashes Before Your Eyes" strongly implied that Eloise was some sort of timecop to traveled through time to make sure things happened the right way, and Lindelof even confirmed that she was a "temporal policeman." That looks like something that changed. Of course, Desmond's time travel doesn't really make sense with the show's version of time travel unless he was traveling to different timelines, which is probably the case, especially after the weirdness of his appearance in the first flash sideways.

I don't think the "timecop" idea changed. The Variable pretty much confirmed that she was making sure everything would happen the way Faraday's journal said it did. She was a time cop in that respect, even if she was not traveling through time herself.

"Smokey told Alpert to stab Jacob before he speaks or you can't kill him, yet he spoke to Ben and Ben was able to kill him." -- George

I don't think that was supposed to be magic, I think it was based on the fear that he would be talked out of it. Which, actually, is what happened. I feel if Richard had stabbed Jacob, Jacob still would have died.